I got a question in Discord the other day. I was asked about how I come up with character ideas and designs. I wanted to take a moment to elaborate for those who might be interested.
The first thing in any of my character design is to think about what they do. Their job, school, kind of day they live or place they live in. When I’m adding a character to a story I’m thinking about how that character will interact with other people and what purpose the character serves. Now that may all sound like heady stuff for transformation comic but it helps me when I draw. It’s one thing to draw one-off poses or transformation pages but it’s another to draw the same comic day after day. When you draw as much as I do it helps to have back story and information on who the characters are. Once you set all that up you can just let the characters live their lives and it’s almost like they’re telling you the story.
Once I know the basics, and this can all be stuff I just jot down on some note program or sketch out. I think about what they might look like. This will be something based off of their personality. For instance, Ultima wears that metal suit and that’s based off the fact it helps her contain energy. One of her jobs is to help contain and restrict energy outbreaks and that’s arguably what her suit helps her do. Other characters that are civilians or the military are also thought of in terms of the job and what they might like to do.
All that said, I feel it’s important to give each character a distinctive look. Whether it’s a black-and-white comic or and animation. Whether they are drawn small on the page or large on the page. It should be pretty clear who is in the scene in nearly every circumstance without dialogue balloons or any indication other than the visuals. Things like hair color, skin color, hairstyles, characters height. All these things help factor into making each character look different. I also look at things like their back story I created and how that might influence some of their look. It’s fun to have characters that are related like Ultima and Olivia or Mika and Naomi and have them be drawn in a similar way to show that they’re sisters.
Of course, getting a cool name that 'fits' the character is always part of the operation as well! haha
I don’t really worry about how complicated clothing is as long as it looks cool on the character. It is possible to get overly complicated and end up drawing an incredibly detailed costume which you regret immediately. Not that there’s anything wrong with a complicated detailed costume. It comes down to time and rendering out elaborate clothing patterns, buttons or hairstyles just takes time. If you have a fast way to do it then go for it.
I think that covers most of what I consider initially. My basic process has been this way for quite a while now and if you look at the character one sheets I’ve set up you can tell I’ve at least worked to follow these ideas. I like to think when you see a lineup of the Growth Lab ladies you can tell each one at a glance.
Thank you again for your support and I hope you enjoy this one.
Ready